


queens

by phantomphaeton



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 13:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20967395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomphaeton/pseuds/phantomphaeton
Summary: It wasn’t a hero in the end. Not a grand savior, nor magic, nor prophecy, nor destiny, nor a promised prince. In the end, it all boiled down to three young women who had decided that they—by that point—were fed up with disappointment.





	queens

**Author's Note:**

> I got a lot of comments in my other work about how people wished Jon had really been made to work for his place in Sansa's good graces after royally fucking her over in season 8. It's funny, because these pieces were written one after the other, weeks before I even made an account and started posting. I hope people enjoy this. Also, I accept constructive criticism, but I'm not cool with people being mean or pissy. There's an election coming up. Channel your frustrations on that platform.  
Thank you for reading.

`.`.`.`.`.`.

Bran is as cold and distant as ever when she goes to visit him in the Godswood. Seated by the roots of the bleeding heart tree, steam wafting all around him from the crystalline pool, he could have been a forest nymph from one of Old Nan’s tall tales.

_Not so tall anymore_, she thinks. _Dragons and undead ice creatures and ravens with third eyes. What else did I once write off as fantasy that is actually true?_

“Are you with us today, Bran?” she asks as she approaches. It's hard to tell most days whether he is there or soaring above them, watching, judging with feathers and a beak.

Silence. The wind calms around them. “I’m here,” he says.

“What news from the south?”

Silence. “Ashes and broken stone,” he says. “Armies turned to corpses. Gates and guards and soldiers laid low. The city lies in dust.”

Sansa closes her eyes, taking a seat on the stone so her eyes are level with him. “Arya?” she asks, her heart suddenly becoming a terribly fragile thing.

_I’ve not prayed in so many years. But if you are real, and if you are watching, don’t let me lose her. _

“She lives,” is his answer, and she breathes once more.

“Jon?” she asks next.

“He lives.”

“The smallfolk?”

“She has reaped her victory with fire and blood,” Bran says. “And will carve out her empire from dust and bones.”

“Will she?” Sansa asks. “Will she truly?”

Bran looks at her now, and for a single fraction of a moment, she sees the boy who used to climb towers and dream of being a knight. “What remains of Westeros now is beyond the skill of kings to heal. To move forward, what it needs are queens.”

Sansa draws in a slow, quiet breath, and then draws it back out. Mist dances before her eyes. She lifts her skirts by the hem and shakes off the snow. “Then it shall have queens.”

_Don’t fight in the North or in the South. Fight every battle, everywhere, always, in your mind. Everyone is your enemy, everyone is your friend. Every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you’ve seen before._

Petyr would be proud.

.

Bronze Yohn Royce is never too far from sight these days, as if he has made it his personal mission to be available to her in any event that she should need it. She is eternally grateful for him, always being suspicious of her enemies, always ready to make them uncomfortable, always ready to take her side. Men of his water are rare creatures indeed, and they are never to be taken for granted.

“Lord Royce, you are an invaluable friend to the North,” Sansa tells him as they walk among the glass gardens. Freshly rebuilt and ready to be replanted, the warmth of the air makes furs unnecessary. They walk arm in arm, as old friends among the rows and rows of tomatoes, potatoes, barley, corn.

“The Vale declared its loyalty to the Starks of Winterfell,” he says. “And House Arryn declared its loyalty to you, my Lady.”

“To me?” she clarifies softly.

He gives her a meaningful look now, one that makes her stomach feel light in triumph. “To _you_, Sansa Stark.”

“And should a day come when the Vale of Arryn would be forced to choose between the Iron Throne and Sansa Stark, would the answer be the same?”

Bronze Yohn Royce only smiles now, patting her hand. “If it would put you at ease, my Lady, I’d have you hear it from the source with your own ears.”

And three days later, Robyn Arryn, a young man grown handsome and stronger than she had thought he ever would when first she met him, is gazing upon her as though she lit every star in the sky. With every sign of a deeper devotion in his eyes, he sinks to one knee and kisses her hand.

“The Vale of Arryn belongs to you, sweet cousin, in any way you should have it,” he assures her, and she sinks to her knees beside him. “And I am at your service,” he adds. “In any way you should have _me._”

Eyes burning with unshed tears at a loyalty she had never found in the king she had all but crowned herself, she pressed a kiss to the same cheek she had once struck on a snowy mountain castle.

“House Stark will never forget this, Sweetrobyn,” she assures him. “And neither will _I_.”

Mother would be proud.

.

Sansa never met Edmure Tully before he rode to Winterfell on her invitation, and to be perfectly honest, she had been worried what to expect from him. Her worry dissipated in a moment as he stood tall and proud, kissing her hand and calling her ‘niece’ so sweetly. He has no real intellect to make him dangerous, no quick-wittedness to make him a player. He lacks her mother’s foresight and half her good sense, and he has nothing of the strength of conviction that made her great uncle Blackfish so legendary. No, it’s better than she’d ever hoped. He’s an idiot—an _absolute dolt_ with just enough good sense and sentimentality to make him too likeable for most people to consider killing.

“The Lannisters have fallen,” Sansa tells him as she fills his plate with blueberry scones. “Riverrun is under the banners of silver trout once again. Congratulations, Uncle. You must be proud.”

She knows he is not, considering the minimal role he played in that. Considering the time he spent at Casterly Rock. No, he has sentimentality enough—enough to feel shame.

_I would have died to get you there._

She swallows a lump in her throat. Shame made him say that. Shame made him _mean_ it. 

“But with the Lannisters fell a city full of innocent souls,” she adds, pushing the teacup towards him. “The new Queen on the Iron Throne is unworthy of the title. The duty falls to us to strip her of this…delusion of grandeur. Can I depend upon the support of the Riverlands when the time comes?”

Edmure’s resolve is written across his face, in his eyes so like hers and yet so different. He finds her face hauntingly familiar, she knows. She doesn’t care. This isn’t her brother or her guardian or her father, and this certainly isn’t Theon. But this is a man who can feel shame, and shame, she knows, can drive a man to do _incredible_ things.

“Riverrun is yours, niece,” he says with finality. “As it was your brother’s.”

.

It was too great a risk to be sending ravens. She hadn’t a clue if there were any spy networks within the walls of Winterfell, and she was certain she’d not take the risk. She’s risked before. She’s learned. In the end, it is Podrick Payne she sends instead with a scroll in his pocket and an urn of ashes she had been loath to part with. Buried among the ashes is the direwolf pin she had placed on his leathers at the last minute before his body was set aflame. It isn’t a gamble, or an insult, or a taunt. It is a step forward, and it works.

Yara Greyjoy arrives in Winterfell within a week, her face weather beaten and hard from the speed of her travels. Sansa suspects she barely slept.

“Why was he burned?” she asks the moment she locks eyes with Sansa.

“All of them were,” Sansa explains. “Fire was the only way to ensure they didn’t rise again. The Night King had been defeated, but we couldn’t take the chance.”

Her features soften now, logic winning out. Sansa has to control her glee. She is logical, this woman. She sees sense. She can be brought to reason.

“Why did you send his ashes to me?” she asks, and her voice betrays a tentativeness that astonishes Sansa. She is testing water, trying to get a feel of the layout. Sansa will not disappoint her.

“Because I know that the dead are laid to rest differently on the Iron Islands,” Sansa replies. “Put to the sea. After what he did for Winterfell, it only seemed right that Theon find his way home.”

Yara’s face grows solemn now, something akin to bitterness and grief etched upon her features. Sansa recognizes it well. For so many years, both were her constant companions.

“Thank you,” Yara says. “We put his ashes to the sea. He’s with my father and brothers now.”

“And I can find some comfort in that,” Sansa says, taking a seat at the table and motioning for Yara to do the same. “Come, please. You’ve had a long journey.”

Yara eats slowly, sips wine and swallows bread and salt and pheasant and Sansa waits, watching, listening to the gears turning in her mind.

“When Theon first returned to Pyke,” Yara says. “I hadn’t seen him in so many years, he scarcely recognized me.”

Sansa lowers her glass and leans in to give Yara her full attention. “When was this?” she asks.

“Years ago. The War of Five Kings. He had an offer from your brother. Robb Stark. Supply the Iron Fleet, and he’d give my father his crown. No fealty. No oaths. Just a good old fashioned promise between two rebel kings. But the idea alone was enough to make my father half mad with anger.”

Sansa is silent as Yara drains her glass, and then offers to pour her another. Yara declines with a shake of the head.

“How long was he with her?” Yara asks. “The Dragon Queen.”

“Jon remained on Dragonstone for the better part of a year.”

Yara nods. “Theon was away from Pyke for longer. But when he returned to treat with us on Robb Stark’s behalf, I nearly killed him. And he wasn’t even asking me to bend the knee. If I had been Jon Snow’s sister, listening to him telling me to cough up my hard earned freedom to a stranger, I’d have fed him to the sharks while he was still living.”

Sansa leans back in her seat. She’s seen what she needs to see. Yara Greyjoy is smart, and careful, and _so fed up_.

“I appreciate hearing you say that,” Sansa admits. “Most everyone around me seems intent on taking his side. They’re convinced I’ve something against him.”

“You seem a great deal smarter than you get credit for,” Yara says. “On that we can relate. _Do_ you have something against him?”

“I didn’t before,” Sansa says, speaking the honest truth. “I do now.”

“I would, too,” Yara says. “Is that what you want to hear? You lured me to Winterfell using Theon’s memory to get me to pledge my fleet to the North?”

“I don’t want your pledge,” Sansa says. “And I would never use Theon as a gambit. Robb Stark, Jon Snow, Theon Greyjoy, they are all my brothers. And of the three of them, Theon is the only one that didn’t disappoint me.”

Yara’s eyes are calculating endlessly as they study Sansa. “He was a good man,” she says.

Sansa nods. “The best of them. It could be many years before Westeros ever knows his like again. He didn’t disappoint you either, in the end.”

“No. He came for me.”

“It was alarming to hear that no one had done that sooner,” Sansa says. “When you were first captured by your uncle. I was shocked that no rescue had been attempted.”

Yara’s lips turn just slightly downward into a frown. “Theon had a difficult run of it,” she says. “He’d been…changed by his time with the Boltons.”

“I wasn’t talking about him,” Sansa says. “Haven’t I already said that Theon is too precious to me to be used as a ploy?”

“Then who are you talking about?”

“Daenerys Targaryen,” Sansa says simply. “You allied with her in Meereen, yes? And when she arrived on the shores of Westeros, she came with two intact armies. Dothraki, Unsullied, and three fully grown dragons. And yet when you were captured, she remained on Dragonstone enticing my brother.”

“Cousin now, if the whispers are correct,” Yara says. “Yes, we’ve heard. Everyone has. And there are tales up and down the kingdoms that he’s been known to ride one of the dragons. You know the only people who can do that are of their water. Dragonlords.”

Sansa scrunches her nose. “He’s little interest in crowns and thrones.”

“Are you certain?”

“Well, considering how quickly he threw away the one I gave him,” Sansa trails off, allowing the silence to fill in the gaps.

Yara smirks. “You’re bitter,” she says. Sansa doesn’t correct her. “It’s alright,” Yara adds. “You’re just the right amount of bitter. The amount that pushes you to do what must be done without blinding you. Can’t have another Cersei Lannister running about, can we?”

“No, I don’t think anyone wants another one of those.”

“Hm,” Yara allows Sansa to refill her wineglass now, and takes a slow, thoughtful sip. “Well, you’re right,” she says. “When I was captured, the Dragon queen made no attempt at rescue. Theon came to save me alone with the Ironborn, and he did it, he told me, with Jon Snow’s blessing.”

“Then one is tempted to wonder what the purpose of alliance with the Dragon Queen was in the first place?” Sansa asks.

Yara shrugs. “She didn’t have the means to do it diplomatically, I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t be too quick to assume that,” Sansa says. “During your time in captivity, she was keeping very busy. Between burning all of the foodstuffs in the Reach, condemning the common people she claims to love so much to starve, and blasting rhetoric to intimidate people when she feels like she’s losing ground, she managed to secure Randyll and Dickon Tarly as prisoners of war.”

“The Tarlys of Horn Hill?” she raises a brow, leaning in towards Sansa as her interest is peaked. Sansa can smell the sea clinging to her skin.

“With Jaime Lannister stubbornly refusing to take up his mantle as Lord of Casterly Rock, Lord Tarly stood as Cersei Lannister’s Commander at Arms. Worth about as much as the Queen of the Iron Islands.”

“And what did she do with these valuable prisoners?”

Sansa gives Yara a plain look now, sipping at her wine. “What came naturally.”

These words simmer in the space between them like the last stubborn drops of water on a burning skillet.

“I shan’t blame you if you don’t take my word for it,” Sansa says. “Randyll Tarly’s first born son is here in Winterfell. For obvious reasons, he chose not to march south beside her. You are free to ask him.”

Yara’s face contorts slowly, fiercely, into a tired, ugly snarl. “Then it would appear that even allies are not safe so long as they call themselves queens.”

“Subjects are not safe, either,” Sansa says. “Regardless of whether or not they call themselves queens or paupers. I’m not sure if you’ve heard what happened in King’s Landing.”

“What happened in King’s Landing?” Yara asks.

Sansa’s lips become a thin line as she wonders how best to tell her. “I’m not sure how to say,” she says. “Seeing as it’s gone.”

“The entire city?”

“Razed to the ground.”

“Cersei always did strike me as a stubborn fool.”

“No, no,” Sansa says. “I mean—that bit is true. But the city had fallen. The bells had been rung. She had it. And she burned it anyway.”

Yara’s brows furrow, and Sansa wonders if she believes her. “She…all of it?”

Sansa leans back in her seat again, taking her wine glass with her. “Ride south and see it for yourself,” she says. “Think everything you will of me, but I tell you the truth.”

“Aye,” Yara says. “I would like to see that for myself.”

“I expect nothing less,” Sansa says, getting to her feet. “Could I trouble you to provide an escort for my sworn sword? Lady Brienne of Tarth is hardly a burden on the road, I assure you. You’ll only need to see her as far as the Crownlands.”

“You’re sending her to put your cousin over her knee?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sansa says, and she is, again, not lying. Jon’s punishment is _hers_ to give. No one else’s.

Yara Greyjoy grunts, nods, and walks away. “I suspect I’ll be seeing you soon,” she says over her shoulder as she leaves.

_If you ride fast and hard_, Sansa thinks. _Sooner than you think._

Robb would be proud.

.

Yara Greyjoy departs Winterfell the following morning at first light, taking her Ironborn and Brienne of Tarth. In Brienne’s saddlebag is a scroll for the rumored hidden Martell. Bran watches over their journey. He tells her, as she knows he will. He tells her of the tears in Brienne’s eyes when she arrives at the hills cresting what was once a bustling, living city. He tells her of the look on Yara Greyjoy’s face when her eyes find the sooty, blackened skeletons of buildings, of children. The ashes still fall like snow. Brienne asks Yara to accompany her to Dorne, and they leave without entering the skeleton city.

It is Yara who convinces the famed Arianne Martell to rally the Dornish lords to their cause. It is Sansa’s argument, with Yara’s own saltwater spin. Sansa’s letter to Elia sets the deal in stone. Holding the palace of Sunspear and the Martell forces under her command, Arianne Martell is the de facto ruler of the unconquered kingdom.

Sansa’s trunks are packed within a matter of hours, and then, at long last, she breaks the vow she swore to herself as Ramsay Bolton’s body was being torn to shreds by hungry dogs. She rides south.

.

Sansa Stark, Yara Greyjoy, and Arianne Martell meet at Highgarden, riding along a blackened strip of the Kingsroad to sip tea beside the vacant castle. They come with small retinues, small enough to make travel light as a feather. Moving quickly is essential. They cannot afford to wait.

“Ellaria Sand and my cousins were rash, trecherous kinslayers,” Arianne says, skin glowing like gold under the southern sun. “But they pledged Dorne to the Dragon Queen, and she repaid them with only death. Queen Yara tells me that she had the Tarlys in custody. I heard of the armistice your brother partook in. I waited, then. For Ellaria Sand to be brought back to Dorne. Surely the daughter of a deposed family could relate to my situation. But she sheltered my father's killers. Made peace with them as though Dorne was theirs to give. But all her talk was as good as sand. Birthrights only matter to her when she speaks of her own.”

“So we’re all in agreement, then?” Sansa asks. “The Dragon Queen must be eliminated.”

Yara shudders delicately as the memory of a city turned to soot and ash, and Arianne looks away before the shadows overtake her. “Aye,” Yara says, and Arianne nods.

“But Dorne will not kneel to another queen on words alone,” Arianne says now, eying Sansa up and down carefully, assessing her.

“I have no blood ties to Dorne,” Sansa says now. “Nor any interest in ruling it. You are the eldest living child of House Martell. Dorne is yours. And you, Queen Yara, are the last living child of House Greyjoy. The Iron Islands are yours. And I am the eldest living child of House Stark. The North is mine. What I’m asking of you now isn’t that you bend the knee to me. What I’m asking of you is to work with me, that we might all of us defend what is ours. The Kraken rules the seas, the Sunspear rules the sands, and the Direwolf rules the Snows. Do we have an accord?”

Margaery always did promise Sansa she’d see Highgarden one day. But she can’t have imagined that Sansa would be there to make history. But on that warm winter day outside of the glorious castle, with a gentle breeze playing around the blackened road, history was exactly what was being made as the Pact of Three Queens was sealed.

.

Even with the armies of Dorne, the Vale, the Riverlands, and the Iron Fleet behind them the three queens were not foolish. Foolishness gets people killed. And it would be foolish, indeed, to ignore the problem glaring them all dead in the face. A problem that had wings and scales and a nasty habit of breathing fire. To this, they turn to Arianne. “How is it coming along?” they ask her.

Arianne smiles. “It worked three hundred years ago, and it’ll work again.”

And in the end, it did.

The idea had been Samwell Tarly’s. Bitterness had spilled just slightly onto the wrong side for him—just enough to make him ready to do the unthinkable.

“Stay close to the water,” he instructs as he shows them where to arrange the newly constructed Dornish scorpions. “When we give the signal, shoot one arrow. Do _not_ wait to see if it landed. Fire and then jump _immediately_ into the water. The dragon will come to burn the machine with you on it. Just jump right in. Do _not_ wait. While he’s burning the first machine, he’ll be stationary long enough for you to fire the next one. Again, do not wait. Fire and then jump. If it misses, it doesn’t matter. You fire the third one.”

Sixteen scorpions constructed over the course of three weeks under the Dornish sun. Hours upon hours of labor, placement, agonizing over meticulous details. One solder stationed at each machine, each machine spaced far away from the one beside it, all along the water, close enough that the one manning it can fire and jump to safety before being consumed by dragonfire.

“How do we get the beast all the way out of the Crownlands?” Yara asks. “How do we get it all the way here to the Reach?”

Sansa smiles. “I have a way.”

Somewhere in the North, a three eyed raven sits beneath the leaves of a bleeding tree. He is watching over her now, she knows. That thing he’s become has taken every last bit of the brother she used to know. But he is watching over her. What’s left of Bran has not let go of that.

Sansa had imagined to herself that it would be some hedge knight or landed Ser who did it. But in the end, it was some nameless blacksmith’s son, a lowly foot soldier who had fired the killing shot. They told her later, when she asked, that it had gone straight through the thing’s eye. Pinpoint accuracy. The lowly foot soldier became a legend. Bullseye Bill, they called the boy, a lad of nineteen with skinny arms and eyes that could spot a fly from a mile away. Sansa kept him nearby, this Bullseye Bill. He’d go down in history, the slayer of the last dragon.

“Now we are safe to march on King’s Landing and slaughter the dragonless Dragon queen,” Arianne says as they toast their victory less than a mile away from the scaly corpse.

“No,” Sansa says.

“No?” Yara repeats. “You don’t want her dead?”

Sansa sighs. “She helped the North. For selfish reasons, yes, but she did it. I don’t punish people for aiding us. She has no dragons now. She cannot hurt anyone. And if she wants to, she’ll have to do it the old fashioned way. She’s not great or legendary anymore. She’s as simple and ordinary as everyone else.”

With this, she sips her tea and gazes out at the castle of Highgarden. Her view is slightly obstructed by the great scaly corpse of the dragon blocking the way. But she inhales the scent of southern air, and for the first time in years it doesn’t smell like prison.

Rickon would be proud.

.

Sansa awakens in the middle of the night with a hand slapped right over her mouth. She sits bolt upright instantly, the dragonglass dagger in her hand pressed forward. In the pale moonlight, she can make out a familiar face, cut and mending, and wide, gray eyes. She cannot stop herself from bursting into tears.

“Arya,” she cries, holding her close. Arya buries herself in Sansa, and on her skin she smells ashes and death. Arya is shaking, weeping, shivering in her arms, and Sansa kisses every part of her face she can reach. “Arya, Arya, Arya,” she repeats over and over, reminding herself that she is real, that she is here, that she is safe.

She had long since made up her mind on what to do with Daenerys Targaryen once the dragon was dead, but no force on earth could have saved the dragon queen if this one little wolf had fallen.

.

With a certain dragon sized problem removed from the equation, the remainder of the last war is over in less than a week. But it is the longest week Sansa has ever known, and she sleeps for a collective total of eight hours in its entirety. In King’s Landing, it had been months at a time between battles, word reaching them at the Red Keep when they were already done fighting. But here and now, the battles are only stretches apart as the combined forces of the three queens match with Unsullied and Dothraki as they lay siege to the city.

“Where are the Northmen?” Sansa asks.

“Silent within,” Lady Brienne says. “Jon is nowhere to be found, but Ser Davos is here to speak with you.”

And Ser Davos enters, and she likes him as much as she always has, and more so when he meets her eyes and tells her that he has seen a city fall to dust and ashes, and the Northmen don’t know what to do.

“Have you seen Jon?” she asks.

“Last I saw him, he was near the Keep.”

“Tell the Northmen that I am at the gates. While we hold this gate, we’ll leave it open. Send out all surviving civilians you can find. What supplies does she have?”

“Supplies, my Lady? She has no supplies, she’s just burnt a damn city to the ground. There isn’t a single structure left intact for her to use.”

Sansa smiles. “Then this will be over quickly.”

And in the end, it was.

History books will tell about it one day, but she doesn’t know this at the time. History books will tell of how the Northmen dropped their swords when they heard the name Sansa Stark, how quickly they disappeared like ghosts from the city of ash. In the course of the last night of that long, miserable week, the three queens had acquired the northern forces and provided shelter to the few hundred survivors of the Reign of Fire.

“Where will we take them?” Yara wonders, looking at the blank faced common folk.

Sansa gazes into their eyes, and she sees the overwhelming hopelessness and loss etched there, and she wonders how different she was once upon a time when she wore gowns of southern silk and fine spun gold.

“We’ll distribute them in groups throughout the middlelands,” she says. “Queen Arianne, you’ll take some to Dorne. Queen Yara and I will divide up the rest of them and relocate them throughout the Reach and the Riverlands. Might be more peaceful for them there.”

And as the survivors are grouped off and escorted away with food in their stomachs and fresh clothes on their backs, Sansa, Yara and Arianne turn their gazes back towards the city. There are no more bells to ring, yet Sansa knows when it’s fallen all the same. Tonight, the three queens retire to a single tent and share a bottle of Dornish white Arianne has brought along.

“They’re really making us look bad,” Yara says. “Cersei and Daenerys. The likes of them make all women look so vicious and uncontrollable, no wonder no one ever gave us any power.”

“It’s true that women have managed to be more devastating,” Arianne says. “But I’d say that has more to do with those particular women just being bad people.”

“Regardless of why they are the way they are and what it means,” Sansa says. “I’ve come to learn that we all of us have a…not quite a destiny, but rather a calling. The three of us, I believe we must redeem queens by example here in Westeros.”

They drink to that.

.

When dawn breaks, the three queens are hungover and messy, but still they bathe and change into pretty garbs and brush out their hair. They pinch color into their cheeks and mount their horses and ride into the fallen city. With all of the Dothraki wiped out and less than a hundred Unsullied left standing, their march into the city is uninterrupted. Here at last Sansa gets to see what the fuss has been about. It’s worse, so much worse, than she had dared to imagine.

The ashes do not fall anymore, but everything is still, distorted, ugly and dead. Contorted bodies, some so small that she has to look away so her eyes won’t well up. Yara rides mute beside her with her eyes fixed resolutely forward, as if looking to either side will break her. Arianne rides with eyes half closed, as if she is walking through a half-remembered dream.

When they reach the Red Keep, only Sansa knows the way, and even this is a stretch. The Keep is unrecognizable, a ghost of the shadow of what it used to be when it was a still a place that tormented her. She leads them to the gardens and find that chunks of this place, miraculously, are intact. She nearly weeps when she finds the sorry excuse for a godswood is unharmed. It is here that they set up their little luncheon, and it is indeed time for luncheon by the time they make it past the rubble and wreckage. Arya, Brienne, Podrick, Bronze Yohn Royce, Davos Seaworth and Bullseye Bill complete the odd lunch party as they pour out lemon water.

It's long after they’ve finished their meal when Commander Grey Worm comes out to speak with them. Yara and Arianne have little patience for this part of the game. Last night, somewhere between drinking themselves insensate and falling asleep, they had come to the unanimous agreement that Sansa ought to do the talking. Yara’s fury with the Dragon Queen could not be trusted, nor could Arianne’s.

“Commander,” Sansa rises to her feet to greet him, and Yara and Arianne are quick to follow suit. “Thank you for receiving us.”

“We did not receive you,” he says, blunt as ever. “You have betrayed your Queen.”

“Quite the contrary,” Sansa says. “The Queen has betrayed us. Semantics, really. Petty stuff. The Queen does not speak in semantics. She speaks in violence, and in this language, we have won the debate. We would have words with her.”

“The rightful Queen will never surrender what is hers,” he says, his voice cold and furious.

“No one said anything about surrender.”

These six words are confusing to Arianne and Yara, and confusing to Arya and Brienne and Davos as Bullseye Bill and Samwell Tarly. They confuse Commander Grey Worm the most, enough to have him turning back to fetch his queen and inform her of this puzzling turn of events.

“Commander!” Sansa calls after him. He pauses. “If you would be so kind as to bring Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister with you, we would be very grateful.”

_Never claim as a right what you can ask as a favor_.

Margaery would be proud.

.

Commander Grey Worm returns with the company in tow. Surrounded by the remaining Unsullied, Tyrion Lannister looks as though he’s spent the last few weeks in a very dark room. His eyes are hollow and gaunt. Jon looks even worse, if that’s possible. There’s nothing about his appearance to betray that, his hair is brushed and smooth and his beard is neatly trimmed. His clothes are immaculate, and his skin is clean. Really, it’s his eyes. Empty, dead, hopeless. Sansa knows the look. When his eyes find her and Arya, he looks, for a single moment, as though he is ready to breathe again. Now Sansa wishes she had not accepted the responsibility of speaking. If Yara and Arianne’s fury is not to be trusted, Sansa’s fury is to be locked away. They had been betrayed by their queen, but Sansa? She had been betrayed by her own kin.

_But I am here to make it right. _

She clenches her fist and breathes deep. She's swallowed her fury before. She knows this game well.

_There are worse fates than death. _

_And I have suffered them all._

Ramsay would be proud.

.

“Your Grace,” Sansa swallows her miseries and greets her with a smile warm as she’s ever mustered. She’s played this game before, with far greater stakes. She can play it better than anyone, especially on this particular stage. “Thank you for taking the time to see us. Won’t you join us? You’ve missed luncheon, but we were just pouring out lemon juice.”

Bullseye Bill empties the pitcher into goblets with steady hands, and Sansa hands the glasses out on a tray to the company, though Grey Worm hesitates before taking his own. Only after Yara, Arianne, and Sansa have drunken does Grey Worm take a sip of his.

“Now that this is out of the way,” Sansa takes her seat and folds her hands before her demurely. “Allow us to congratulate you on you decisive victory over Cersei Lannister.”

“With special emphasis on the _decisive_ part,” Arianne says pointedly.

“And Euron Greyjoy,” Yara adds quickly, raising her glass to Daenerys, who looks as spotless and furious as Sansa has ever seen her.

“We cannot forget him,” Sansa says, nodding. “Quite the achievement, Your Grace. You must be so proud of yourself. Now, onto the sorry matter regarding the dragon,” and she steels herself as Daenerys’ eyes flicker venomously in her direction. “He lies just outside of Highgarden, though he is being moved as we speak. We thought it fitting that he be returned to his mother.”

Daenerys’ eyes are hard and wild, her brows twitching, her lips contorting with silent rage. Sansa honestly doesn’t know what’s holding her together. All logic would point to plain restraint, but instinct warns her of curiosity. She’s not so blinded by grief and anger that she isn’t wondering what’s coming next. The thought makes Sansa’s own rage skyrocket as she’s hit with a dawning realization.

_She’s perfectly sane. She’s just vicious_.

And in this moment, Sansa makes up her mind. She had wavered before, uncertain and hesitant, but no more.

“Now there are a few more technical details that require our immediate attention,” Sansa continues. “Yara Greyjoy and Arianne Martell have been very helpful and cooperative, but I had imagined that we’d need all of the queens of Westeros present before we came to any final decisions. Please,” Sansa gestures to the last empty seat at the table. “Your Grace. We need you with us.”

“Do you?” she speaks at last with that cold, hard voice Sansa has come to associate with authority and anger, a voice she never trusted for a moment and in all honesty, reminds her of Joffrey when he’s having a tantrum. It makes her smile, which makes Daenerys even angrier.

“No,” Arianne says now, and all eyes are on her. She matches the fire in Daenerys’ eyes with fire of her own, with scorching sand and the sting of a scorpion. “We do not. Sansa Stark is being courteous.”

“Dorne was sworn to me,” Daenerys growls at her.

"You took the oath of my uncle's kinslaying whore instead of aiding me in reclaiming my birthright at Sunspear," Arianne says acidly. "But Dorne was ever _mine_, and I never swore it to you."

"Again, semantics," Sansa says. _A lady's armor is courtesy. _“We’d appreciate your cooperation in this discussion, Your Grace. What is discussed today impacts all of the kingdoms, including your own. But if Your Grace is unwilling to participate, the discussion will proceed without you.”

Daenerys glares heartily at her, a bitter, burning hatred unlike anything she’s ever seen in her life. Her aunt Lysa hadn’t looked at her like this when she tried to fling her from the moondoor.

“Sit down,” Yara hisses at Daenerys now, and her leg kicks out at the chair beside Sansa.

“I supported your claim to that miserable spit of land,” Daenerys hisses back at her, voice rising just slightly.

“And you left me to die,” Yara spits. “We’ve seen the way you treat your allies and your enemies. No one needs to make this pleasant. God only knows why this wolf's making it so. Now sit down so we can work this shit out.”

Sansa pats the seat gently. “Please, Your Grace,” she says, sweet as a peach.

Daenerys sinks into the seat with dignity and grace that Sansa isn’t quite sure she can believe. She pushes the lemon juice glass before her helpfully and takes a sip of her own. “The survivors of the Massacre at King’s Landing have been divvied up,” Sansa says. “I’m sure Your Grace will be pleased to hear that we accounted for some four hundred survivors. Some have gone to Dorne under Queen Arianne’s protection, and the rest are being relocated safely within the Reach and the Riverlands. They’ll all be settled peacefully by the end of the month. Unfortunately, that means there is no one here left to bow to you. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with the ashes.”

Daenerys’ nose twitches and she levels Sansa with a glare that reminds Sansa of Cersei in the days of her engagement to Ser Loras. It gives Sansa the strength to keep up her civil smile.

“I am the rightful Queen,” Daenerys asserts.

“And no one would dare challenge that,” Sansa says. “You have won the Iron Throne and King’s Landing fair and square. So the Iron Throne and King’s Landing are yours to keep. You’re unlikely to be met with any trouble here in the city—”

“Seeing as there’s no one left.” Arya mutters in a quiet, bitter aside.

“So your remaining soldiers should have no trouble building a home here,” Sansa continues. “The question now becomes what is to be done with the rest of the continent? We have taken it upon ourselves to devise a solution that will please everyone. The Greyjoy kraken will rule the seas, the Martell sunspear will rule the sands, and the Stark wolf will rule the snows. Samwell Tarly has been named Lord Paramount of the Reach and Warden of the South, which will—only for the time being—answer to the kingdom of Dorne. Unfortunately, Lord Tarly, this will require you to shed your Maester’s chains. My sincerest apologies. I know how hard you worked for them.”

“Just tell me that I’ve leave to steal into the Citadel whenever I please and I’ll work around the pain,” Sam says. “But a lord needs a lady.”

“I’ve a very valuable lady in waiting in my employment in Winterfell,” Sansa says. “Lady Gilly is her name. Quite a precious thing to me. House Stark will fund her dowry. Marry Lady Gilly and consider the North your eternal ally.”

“I find these terms very adequate,” Sam says with a massive grin.

“Ser Davos of House Seaworth has been granted the stronghold of Castamere,” Sansa adds. “It will require some rebuilding, but he will reside in Casterly Rock until it is complete. With him so close to Lannisport, it seems only fitting that he be named provisional Lord of the Westerlands and Warden of the West. For the time being, the Westerlands will answer to the North. The western lords have no armies left to defend their keeps and they’ll be wary of Ironborn, very observant of Yara to point out.”

Arianne and Sansa tip their glasses to Yara, who accepts the praise with a smirk.

“Which leaves four kingdoms up in the air,” Tyrion says, the smallest smirk on his face as his eyes dart between them. Daenerys looks as though she might throttle him, but he steps forward into view anyways.

“Gendry Baratheon is already settling in the Stormlands as we speak,” Sansa says. “Bullseye Bill will soon be joining him at Storm’s End. He’s going to need help running the Stormlands. And he will have his new lady wife to guide him,” Sansa adds, beaming at a blushing Arya. “With a bull and a she-wolf watching over them, the Stormlands won’t know what hit them.”

“And the Vale and the Riverlands?” Tyrion asks, with something akin to pride on his face.

“The Vale of Arryn was sworn to Sansa Stark after the fall of House Bolton,” Yohn Royce says. “Their status as our liege lords has not changed.”

“House Stark pledged fealty to me,” Daenerys says, some measure of force back in her voice.

This is the trouble with being too courteous. It gives people the feeling that they still have some semblance of control. Daenerys is more foolish than Sansa had imagined if there is any single aspect of this situation that has given her the impression that she will walk away from this meeting with anything more than her life.

Bronze Yohn Royce is far less than inclined to give her more than a tip of his head, so far removed from the near bow he once gave her at Winterfell. “Jon _Snow_ pledged fealty to Your Grace,” he corrects, with a nasty emphasis on ‘Snow’. “Jon Snow was granted the authority to rule the independent Northern kingdoms by the lords. He was within his rights to abdicate his crown as he saw fit. He was _not_, however, given the authority to hand over the Northern independence altogether. When he abdicated, the crown passed automatically to the next eligible ruler.” And he gestures to Sansa, who is sorely wishing she had a fan because a breeze has carried in the scent of charring and it’s making her stomach churn. “Sansa Stark has been the queen in the North since the moment you arrived in Winterfell.”

“Your Uncle has already pledged Riverrun to House Stark as well, honoring the alliance made by your Lord father and Lady mother, may the Gods bless their souls,” Lady Brienne adds. 

“Which still leaves the Crownlands,” Arianne says, sipping at her drink.

“Queen Daenerys barely has the forces to hold Fleabottom, let alone the Crownlands,” Sansa says. “So for the time being, the Crownlands will be entrusted to the Reach. Lord Tarly, I’m sure you’ll govern them wisely. Which leaves Your Grace,” Sansa says, now turning at last to face a stony Daenerys. “As the rightful queen of the city of King’s Landing. And all of the subjects still dwelling within. I thank Your Grace kindly for attending the conference.”

Daenerys gives Sansa a look that might have set her on fire had she not been carved from ice.

“Means you can go now,” Arya says loudly, as if she is hard of hearing.

Daenerys shifts her glare onto her. “This city is empty,” she says.

“Who’s fault is that?” Arianne asks.

“Those kingdoms are mine,” Daenerys says.

“Then you are welcome to rally your remaining forces to take them,” Sansa says gently.

And now Daenerys looks as though she may shriek. The telltale slide of a sword leaving its sheath echoes as Bullseye Bill watches her with eyes sharp as a hawk. The Unsullied respond in kind, outnumbered as they are.

“At ease, gentlemen,” Sansa says, eyes never leaving the papers before her as she writes. “How many e’s are in Castamere?” she wonders out loud.

“Just the two,” Tyrion supplies helpfully.

“Thank you, My Lord,” Sansa says as she scribbles the rest of it down. “I mean it, all of you. Swords down. I’ve had my fill of death.”

Slowly, miraculously, the swords and spears are left to rest. Sansa finishes writing and gets to her feet. “Thank you again, Your Grace, for attending. We’ll not keep you any longer.”

Sansa can see the gears turning behind her head, but pretends not to notice as she takes another sip of her drink. Gods, she’s missed lemons. Arianne’s already sent an entire caravan of them up to Winterfell. They’re being preserved into jars at this exact moment. Oh, all of the lemon cakes she’s going to have. The thought alone makes this meeting, and what’s coming next, bearable. Until then, the gears in Daenerys Targaryen’s head are still turning. She knows now that she has nothing. Not really. Courtesy will salvage her pride, but it cannot give her power. Her eyes flit to Tyrion and Jon. Jon, who Sansa has done a brilliant job of ignoring and who, she must admit, has done a splendid job of making himself invisible. For a moment, it’s like they are children back at Winterfell again.

“Your Grace needn’t worry for your councilors,” Sansa adds. “A queen needs advisors to help her run a kingdom. Yours will remain here in King’s Landing with you.”

Whatever reaction Daenerys has to this is lost on Sansa, as she takes a seat and gives the dragon queen her back again to focus on her papers. Sansa has decided that she is done with her now, done with speaking to her, reasoning with her, looking at her, pretending to not mind looking at her. No, no, she is quite done with it all. All she hears are the footsteps as the Unsullied protect their queen’s retreat back into the Red Keep. She can hear her slow, angry breaths. Let her fume. Let her rage and storm. Sansa won’t be around to see it, and she’s not her problem anymore.

“Lady Sansa,” Tyrion says.

“That’s hardly the way to address the Queen of the North,” Arya says, and she’s toneless as she was the day Sansa found her in the crypts.

“And the Vale,” Yohn Royce adds.

“And…the Riverlands,” Sam adds.

Tyrion’s miserable face manages a small smile. “You’re going to have to work out how to bring all three of those into a single title. It’s awfully long.”

“Is it? I hear your queen’s is much longer,” Yohn Royce says.

“Touche,” Tyrion says.

“Play nicely, everyone,” Sansa says. “We can forgive Lord Tyrion any lapses in decorum. He is responsible only for _his_ queen.”

“Which is precisely what I had hoped to speak with you about,” Tyrion says. “I wonder now if this is the best way to go about deciding the fate of the city.”

“The city has no fate left to decide. If it is a bad decision, who is there to suffer for it?” Sansa asks. “The remaining civilians have been evacuated. There is literally no one left in King's Landing. She is the queen of the ashes, and she has the Iron Throne. And I am sure that your faith in her was not misplaced. She will be a _good_ queen to the ashes, and tend most diligently to the polishing of the pretty chair.”

“I suppose you think I’ve earned this,” Tyrion says. “And I suppose I have.”

“You _did_ look me in the eye and swear that she’d be good,” Sansa says. “And I wished, rather than believed, that you were right. But you’ve lost your quickness, Lord Tyrion. You’re hardly the man you were when you were still my husband. I fear that when I fled King’s Landing, I took your good sense in my pocket.”

“I had hoped it might have been tucked in your cleavage, actually,” Tyrion says, and in spite of everything, Sansa laughs.

“You haven’t changed half as much as I thought you had,” she says. “But regrettably, your fate is the same. You will stay to govern the city with her. And when she has dismissed you, which I imagine will be very soon, you will return to the Westerlands and accept your position as Lord of Casterly Rock. Ser Davos can hold it temporarily, but the Western lords won’t have any permanent ruler besides a Lannister, and we’ll not risk an uprising by shoving someone down their throats.”

“No, I suppose shoving decisions down people’s throats is the Dragon Queen’s job,” Tyrion says with a chuckle. “And your brother—er—cousin?”

Sansa doesn’t want to look at him, but she’s felt his eyes burning into her since he arrived. In the end, she is pleased to say, she doesn’t spare him a glance. “He shall remain here.” She says.

“Sansa—” he begins, vice cracking just the slightest.

“He shall remain in King’s Landing,” Sansa continues. “_With his queen_.”

“We must have a private audience with Jon,” Arya says now, and Sansa doesn’t look up from her papers but she assumes Arya is looking pointedly at Jon to silence him from the way her voice comes out.

_No_. She is thinking. _No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to be alone with him. I don’t want to speak to him. Get him away from me. Far, far away_.

“Queen Yara,” Arya continues with a courtesy that makes her quirk an eyebrow. “Queen Arianne, if you would be so kind?”

The area is cleared far quicker than Sansa had imagined, to her chagrin. Soon, there is little more than the quiet breathing between the three of them.

“Sansa,” he begins again, and his voice is the same, but emptier.

“Did you know that the Northern lords wanted to mutiny you, Jon?” Arya asks.

Sansa pauses in her writing for a moment. Of all of the outcomes for this conversation, of all of the possibilities, she had never accounted for a circumstance where Arya would be defending her. To Jon. _Over Jon_. The thought is so absurd that Sansa has to pinch herself.

“I…mutiny?”

“When you left for Dragonstone. I arrived in a Winterfell that was ready to strip you of your title. Littlefinger was feeding off of the chaos, trying to turn us all against each other. The Northern lords wanted to name Sansa queen. I thought that she’d take it. I was _certain_ that she would. Without the title, you’d have been useless meat filling Daenerys Targaryen’s prison cells. Or Daenerys Targaryen’s dining halls. Or Daenerys Targaryen. But Sansa stuck her neck out. I watched her do it. For an entire year, she kept those lords at bay, persuading them to have faith in you. Because she had faith in you. And she convinced the lords to have faith in _her_.”

Sansa pretends to still be writing, because she doesn’t want to turn around, to see Jon’s face. She doesn’t want to look at Arya. She doesn’t want to look at anyone right now, while her eyes are burning and her tears are boiling and her chest is hurting with the force of the realization that Arya, who once couldn’t look at her but to see a useless flimsy little ribbon of a lady, is defending _her_. Arya is defending her _to Jon_. The force of it makes the teardrops soak the page she’s pretending to write on.

“When you marched back to Winterfell with that queen beside you, told us all you’d given up the North to her, the only reason the lords didn’t hang you for a traitor was because they believed in Sansa. Not because you were able to make the argument, not because they respected you, or even because they vaguely _liked_ you. Because of Sansa. She staked her _entire_ reputation on your loyalty to the North. Can you imagine the position you put her in when you returned with that woman?”

“We needed her—”

“And afterwards?” Arya presses. “When we didn’t need her anymore? We don’t turn on those who help us. We would have helped her take back the miserable chair. But when we learned the truth about you, when you told us that there was a way to keep the North—”

“And you promised you’d keep it secret. But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t,” Sansa says, because Gods, she has done _so many_ stupid things in her life but no way in absolute _hell_ is she going to be taken to task for this. She rises to her feet, wiping her tears and staring resolutely at him. “No, I didn’t keep it secret. I broke my promise to you, just like you broke yours to me. I suppose that’s the way promises work between us now. What you gave me was information that had the power to keep us all safe and free. You could have used that information to press for the North’s freedom, for _our_ freedom. You said you would protect me. But when you had the chance to do it, you pushed it away and told me to bury it. And I had to become that girl that this miserable city turned me into, that girl who keeps everything locked away in her mind because she cannot trust a soul around her, that girl that _you swore_ I’d never need to be again. _Yes, I broke my promise_. I broke my promise to set my people free. You wanted it quiet to _keep me_ _on my knees_. I will _never_ apologize for how I chose to fix what you chose to break.”

Jon’s eyes never leave her as she speaks, growing paler with every word that leaves her mouth. He crumbles in the end, collapses into Yara’s abandoned seat.

“They wanted to mutiny again, just after you left to come down here and help her take the throne,” Sansa goes on. “For forcing them to leave before they could heal. They got the impression that you wanted them all to die. They _hated_ you for it. There was nothing I could say except what you told me, and you, for all you preached about how we need to trust each other, for all that you told me about honesty, only said five words to me. _She’ll be a good queen_. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work very well when I’d already been proven wrong about you before. My argument held no water. And what was worse was that I didn’t even remotely believe it. I’ve spent too much time at the mercy of tyrants to not know one the moment I saw one, and I knew what she was the moment I saw her. And then it all came down around me,” and now Sansa sinks back into her seat too, feeling so old and broken and _tired_. “Varys leaked word throughout the continent about you. Everyone in Westeros knows it now. And when the North learned it, they had imagined that you’d press your claim. After everything, they were still ready to stand behind you. But then they learned that you were rejecting your claim, favoring hers. That their king would abandon his crown, cede it to a southern queen, bringing the North back into the fold of the Iron Throne, and then happen by pure circumstance to be the _nephew_ of said queen…the Northern lords can appear obtuse at times, but even they weren't too thick to read between the lines.”

Jon shakes his head slowly, staring at her with those mopey brown eyes she always used to think were so endearingly gentle. They are still, but Sansa has learned the hard way that even gentleness cannot keep her alive. What she needs the most in a man is loyalty. Jon, for all of his kindness, has none of that to offer her.

“That was my doing,” she admits.

“No it wasn’t, Sansa,” Arya says.

“Yes, it was,” Sansa goes on. “Jon, you told me to have faith in you, so I did. I had faith that you would protect me and the North. I believed that you understood what that meant. That our freedom _was_ our safety. I believed that you would do what needed to be done to secure that freedom, but I was wrong about you. I told Tyrion, and he told Varys, and Varys told the world, and instead of using that information to press for our freedom, you threw it away, and now the Northern lords think you a traitor and that is because of me.”

“No,” Jon says, shaking his head. “That is because of _me_. You did everything right, Sansa. I was the one who fucked everything to hell. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have done _so many things_. I should have—” he chokes now, curling in on himself as if the ashes are still falling like snow around him. “It wouldn’t have been half so terrible as I made it out to be, listening to you.” A miserable laugh escapes him now, a shell of what it ought to sound like. “You’re smarter than everyone.”

“Don’t say that,” she says.

Because she knows what it’s like, to look at death and ruin, to stare grief and sorrow in the face and know that she was, in an awful way, responsible for it. That had been the very beginning of her journey. She was only a child, aye, but she was guilty of it all the same. And she will never _not_ be guilty of it, the same way Jon will never not be guilty of it. But Sansa learned her lessons, however awful they were. She cannot save Jon from that fate.

“Why not?” he asks bitterly. “It’s the truth.”

“I never accomplished anything by wishing things were different. I could only learn from the mistakes, could only swear that I’d never make them again.”

And now Jon will learn, as she did. He’ll learn how to play. Not the same way she did, because Jon is not a twelve year old girl, and the enemies are very few and far between. King’s Landing will be a different sort of teacher for him than it was for her. The rules of the game will find a different way to set in his mind. Everywhere he will look, he will see a reminder of why every step must always be measured, every word weighed, every smile, every curtsey, every _promise_.

_Guilt_ is suffering, she knows. Worse than bowing to Cersei Lannister and kissing Joffrey’s sword or taking a beating from Merryn Trant. Worse than being carved and cut by Ramsay, worse than wading through ice water, worse than kissing Littlefinger. The worst suffering she’s ever known is the trip to the Traitor’s Walk, where Father’s head was mounted on a spike. The crushing sickness, the ugly, bitter grief that shattered her bones and froze her blood as she gazed upon his lifeless face and knew, just _knew_, that she could have saved him had she been smarter. Cersei, Joffrey, Ramsay, Tywin, Olenna, Margaery, Varys, Littlefinger, Tyrion. All these teachers, and guilt was her greatest master.

He will learn. He must. And only guilt can teach these lessons now.

“Somewhere in Oldtown, Maesters are sitting by windows bent over parchment with quills in hand,” she says. “They’re writing about what happened here in King’s Landing. They’re writing about a city that surrendered, they’re writing about a Queen everyone swore would be as awful as her father, and they’re writing about how she proved them right. What happened here will go down in history as the greatest global catastrophe since the Doom of Valyria. And you, Jon, have made the North complicit in the slaughter. I don’t know what will happen next. All I know is that you have chosen your queen. You will serve her until she needs you no more. That is the oath you swore to her. Up and down the North, they will call you a traitor, but no one shall call you an oathbreaker.”

She is done speaking to him now, and she feels nothing as she leaves him behind. She will miss him, will miss having him near, will miss the bits of home he carries with him that remind her of a time when she wasn’t guilty of anything.

_Am I guilty?_

Yes. Of _so many_ things.

_Will he ever forgive me?_

She doesn’t care anymore.

Yara Greyjoy and Arianne Martell meet her outside the city, in their old tent. The lemon juice has done wonders for their hangovers, though Yara is still looking clammy.

“We shall meet again in Highgarden this time next year, yes?” Arianne clarifies as their things are packed away, battle plans rolled up, armies fed and ready to leave.

“This time exactly,” Yara says. “Expect plenty of saltwater taffy in the coming weeks. It’s a delicacy. But are you sure it’ll take a year?”

Sansa smiles as she kisses their cheeks. “I’ve a hunch,” she says. “I’m rarely wrong.”

Olenna would be proud.

.

It takes less than a year, in the end. A wayward ship docked in Blackwater Bay sailed back to the city of Qarth with the silver haired queen and her remaining men in tow. Meereen appears to be their destination, to settle a raging city and continue efforts to put an end to the slave trade. When Sansa first hears of it, she wasn’t certain exactly what ‘_her remaining men_’ entailed.

Or who.

But to be honest, she has greater concerns. Shipments of glass are arriving from the Iron Islands and apples are being exported to Dorne, and she’s expecting envoys from Braavos to discuss opening trade ports in White Harbor. She’s a busy woman. So when Lady Brienne informs her in the middle of a council meeting that Jon Snow has arrived in Winterfell, Sansa can’t exactly drop everything to go see him. Only a small part of her feels sad about that. She had greeted him the last time in the courtyard with open arms, nevermind who he brought with him. But he’s here, which means that he’s not included under the blanket term ‘_her remaining men_’. He is not _her_ man. And some miserable, aching part of her is floating on clouds for this.

She finds him in the Godswood after the meeting is over. He’s seated exactly where her father used to sit once upon a time. His hands are gloved but they still shake. She can see it from yards away.

“Has the Queen dismissed you from her service?” she asks.

And though his hands still tremble, he rises the instant he knows she’s there. “I’ve removed myself from her service,” is his gruff reply.

Sansa nods. “How did you find King’s Landing?” she asks.

His face crumbles instantly, and he looks, for a moment, as though he is going to collapse back into his seat. His hands shake harder, and he steels himself with a breath. She waits.

“I think I’ve learned a great deal there,” he says. The answer seems weighed. Calculated. She fights a smile. He’s learning.

“I’m expecting to head down south to Highgarden within the next few months,” she says. “Queen Yara and Queen Arianne will be meeting me for the summit. The fate of the Westerlands and the Crownlands must be settled. You are welcome to remain here in Winterfell.”

Jon shakes his head so quickly that for a moment she wonders if he is warding off a fly. “My place is with my queen. I will join you at Highgarden.”

Sansa gives him a small smile, stepping forward and taking his hand. “Jon, you are my family. If home is where you will find your peace, then home is where you will stay.”

Jon looks at her with eyes that have seen a thousand years, and he squeezes her hand tightly as he brings her knuckle up to his lips. “You are my queen,” he tells her. “Now and always.”

Sansa shakes her head. “I am Sansa. And you are Jon.”

“Sansa,” he whispers. “Tell me I can go with you. Tell me I’m to stay by your side.”

“I can’t tell you what to do.”

“You are the Queen in the North.”

“And I am your sister.”

“Cousin,” he corrects so quickly, so forcefully, that she takes a step back. He clutches her hand tighter to keep her there. “You’re my _cousin_,” he says again, softer. “You’re my cousin and my queen and my place is beside you, wherever that may be.”

Sansa doesn’t know what to say to this, to the words he’s saying or the way he’s saying them, so she steps forward and wraps her arms around him. It’s almost an agony, really, her relief when his arms circle her instantly in response. All she can feel is his breath on her neck, his lips on her cheek, her nose, her hair, her eyelids, and lingeringly, her lips.

“Tell me you forgive me,” he says, eyes shut tight, forehead pressed to hers. “Tell me I can come home.”

_You’re already home, Jon_, she wants to say, but she knows now that he isn’t talking about Winterfell. So she holds him tighter and lets him kiss her face until he’s a melted pile of nothing in her arms. She guides him into the castle to her solar and sits him down, pours him a steaming mug of tea and stokes the fire. She sits beside him, she takes his hand, and she whispers into his hair ‘_you’re home_.’

She’s proud.

-end-


End file.
